I had actually forgotten that this film was due for release here in the UK as it had no marketing push whatsoever, I still haven’t seen a trailer (not even as a special feature on the DVD) and there was only one copy in Blockbuster, and this is a 20th Century Fox release!!
Most famous for being the film Kane Hodder did when he was told that he would not be playing Jason Voorhees in Freddy vs. Jason, Darkwolf has an impressive cast and a similar idea to Wes Craven’s Cursed in that it focuses on a group of young adults over one night in the City after a werewolf attack seperates them.
The film is a mixed bag. Aesthetically, it cannot be faulted, every aspect looks good. What I felt was it’s major flaw was the terrible CGI which is clearly the same kind you would find in a PC game, not a motion picture thank you very much!!
There are some very good set pieces, particularly once the kids get to Wayne’s studio apartment, with plenty nooks and crannies rife for exploration and plenty opportunities for a bit of titilation.
The chase scene in the warehouse is quite good but stalls a little and therefore is never fully capitalised on, a wasted opportunity as it were.
Kane Hodder is underused, as he has a stunt double and another guy plays the actual wolf in a suit (which looks better than the CGI) and Tippi Hedren is way too clean to be a real down and out (and whilst it can be argued that she isn’t really a down and out, 5 minutes in that alley would have anyone begging for a shower).
The fact that the likeable characters died and the annoying ones lived was irritating, and the ending clearly rips off Halloween Resurrection but the terrible CGI even manages to ruin that.
In the end we have a decent film that does attempt to bring new mythology to the world of Lycanthropes, and I certainly enjoyed it a bit more than Underworld.
With the Ginger Snaps sequels being poorly received, lets hope that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson can resurrect the flailing werewolf sub-genre, as they did the slasher genre almost 10 years ago.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The film is not a total loss, the premise is good and the cast are too. What ruined it for me was the awful CGI that completely took me out of the movie and made sure that I slowly lost interest. Despite this, the film is a decent enough watch and may even grow on me the more I watch it.
